Two Public Safety Groups Agree with FCC Proposals to Withdraw LightSquared Waiver

WASHINGTON,
D.C. – Two major national public safety groups have filed comments with the FCC
declaring that LightSquared’s plans would interfere with critical
safety-of-life uses of GPS, and concurring with the FCC’s proposals to withdraw
LightSquared’s conditional waiver and prohibit it from building its proposed
ground-based wireless network.

Both
the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International, Inc.
(APCO) and the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) also
said in FCC filings that their organizations oppose LightSquared’s Dec. 20,
2011 petition seeking a declaratory ruling that commercially available GPS
devices would not be protected against harmful interference caused by
LightSquared’s ancillary terrestrial component (ATC) operations. Referring to
that LightSquared request, APCO said it “is deeply troubled by LightSquared’s
approach, as it appears to contradict the assurances that LightSquared had
given to APCO and others that it would address interference to GPS receivers.”

The
APCO and NPSTC filings this week occurred as the Coalition to Save Our GPS submitted its comments to the FCC on the LightSquared request for a declaratory
ruling, urging that the FCC deny LightSquared’s request and saying
LightSquared’s petition “again misrepresents history and the nature of
LightSquared’s authority.”

The APCO
filing said it had been “monitoring the LightSquared deployment plan with a
concern that it could interfere with public safety and other critical
GPS-related operations,” pointing out that GPS is essential to emergency
communications and that public safety personnel “increasingly rely” on a
GPS-enabled devices to “locate vehicles, personnel, and emergency locations.”
APCO cited the National Telecommunications and Information Administration
(NTIA) finding that it had “concluded that LightSquared’s proposed mobile
broadband network will impact GPS services and there currently is no practical
way to mitigate the potential harmful interference,” saying that, “In light of
the NTIA letter and other information on the record, APCO supports the
Commission’s proposed actions.”

The NPSTC
filing said in its comments that “NPSTC reaffirms the
necessity to protect public safety reception and use of GPS signals,” and that
its “goal in this proceeding has been and continues to be straightforward – to
ensure that interference does not result to public safety related use of GPS.”
The NPSTC filing said, “Testing done to date confirms significant interference
problems will occur under the LightSquared proposal. Accordingly, NPSTC concurs
with the Commission’s proposed action to vacate the previous Waiver Order and
to modify LightSquared’s license.”

The
NPSTC commented that “GPS is used for wireless 911 locations, support of
dispatch operations, mapping/response directions to responders, and
synchronization of simulcast communications systems across the country. The
nation cannot afford to risk interference that could debilitate the reception
and/or accuracy of GPS signals used for public safety operations.”